Transition to Virtual Server

CUUG services are transitioning from our old physical server ("concord") to a new virtual server ("arnold", named in honour of our late Treasurer, Arnold Goldberg). The switch is scheduled to take place on the evening of Saturday, March 30, 2019. For the most part, this should be transparent, but there are a few things you need to know.

Mail

If you have a .forward file on "concord", it has already been copied to "arnold" and you should continue to receive CUUG mail as you always have.

If you read your mail locally at CUUG, you will need to do so on the new system as of March 31. For convenience, we recommend that you use the server name "mail.cuug.ab.ca" for this. Prior to March 31, this refers to "concord"; on March 31 and thereafter, this refers to "arnold".

Old mailboxes on "concord" have not been copied to "arnold", so to access your old messages, you'll need to connect to "concord". All new mail will go to "arnold" and must be read there. If you are the nostalgic type who wants to keep all your old messages, we understand, but we request that you copy these to a personal machine rather than to "arnold", since the amount of disk space on "arnold" is limited.

Mailing Lists

The "Events" and "CalgaryUNIX" mailing lists are being carried forward, but other obsolete mailing lists are not. Mail to "CalgaryUNIX" will continue to work as it always has.

With this transition, the web interface to the mailing lists is working once again, so you can manage your subscription configuration directly.

Web

Personal web pages (~/public_html/*) have been copied and are available on "arnold". For security reasons, all web pages reside under a single common root directory which is separate from /home, so your ~/public_html is now a link to the directory where your personal pages actually reside. You don't need to keep the link, but if you delete it and create a ~/public_html directory, it won't do what you think it should, since that's not where the web server is serving pages from.

We finally have support for https! You can access your web pages as https://www.cuug.ab.ca/yourname/index.html etc. Simple http continues to work as well.

Login

In the interest of security, we encourage everyone to take this opportunity to create a new password for use on "arnold". Old passwords have not been carried forward, so you'll have to contact "crcadmin" at CUUG to arrange to enable your account on "arnold". You will be given a temporary password which you should change at your earliest convenience.

Your personal files from "concord" have not been copied to "arnold" (other than your .forward and your ~/public_html directory). "concord" will remain available during a transition period of approximately one month, so feel free to copy what you need during that time. Please don't just copy everything, since space is limited. This is a good time to do some "spring cleaning."

Server

The virtual server is running Debian 9 ("stretch").

The hosting company is Canadian, with offices in Vancouver and Toronto. Our virtual server is hosted in Vancouver.

Questions?

For more information, or to provide feedback on your experiences with the new system, please contact "crcadmin" at "cuug.ab.ca".